Out of commission

Hey ya’ll – I’m taking the day off from blogging. This past weekend, I lifted a couple of things I shouldn’t have (a 17″ monitor and 19″ monitor), and I’ve felt the results of it over the last couple of days with major lower back pain. It’s uncomfortable for me to sit down right now, so I’m spending the day resting, mostly by laying down on the couch, in hopes that the pain will subside. If I feel better this evening, I’ll try to get some blogging done.

In the meantime, please utilize this as today’s open thread.

Wed AM Update: Thanks, all, for the well wishes. I’m feeling better today, but the lower back is still a little tender. But at least it’s not as uncomfortable to sit down as it was yesteday.

14 Responses to "Out of commission"

Before Christmas I managed to put 2 disks out of place in my lower back, and just in the last few days I have gotten back to near normal. I probably did that when I was carrying 100 + pound boxes up on my right shoulder out to the front of work for shipping by Fedex. That and I guess I am gettin’ old…der. [chuckles]

You take for granted bending over to tie your shoes until you can’t do it.

Anyways, I went to a chiropractor who was adjusting, but went to walmart and picked up a lumbar support to help put pressure on it (felt better when I had pressure) and slipped a towel around a reusable ice pack and slipped it between back and brace. I helps.

I will warn you though, I laid on a heating pad for like 20 minutes, and boy that was a mistake! I ended up literally crawling out of bed, because I could barely stand afterwards.

My guess is that heat aggravated it, since the muscles are inflammed around the disk, the heat made it worse, while the ice pack helped reduce the swelling and the pain in the muscles.

Believe me, I feel for you. Back pain when it is severe is nothing to pass off.

I posted about this on a personal blog of mine Taking a Sanity Break, including pictures of the brace I was talking about and a Chiropractors chart on the nerves and what it affects.

Side note: Sorry, personal blog, not political guys. Feel free to stop by if you so wish, but I made that specifically non-political, so its about everything but politics and it will stay that way, hence the name Taking a Sanity Break.

I do hope you feel better ST, I think the hardest part when it is your lower back is sitting at the computer for any amount of time. For that, I used a small pillow from the couch, rolled into a ball and put between my lower back and the chair.

“Well, I don’t really consider, I wasn’t equating the Palestinian missiles with terrorism.”

….

“Most of the condemnations of my book came from Jewish American organizations, which think that I believe there is racial segregation inside Israel.”

….

“My whole book is written about Palestine and its lands, and about what is going on against the Palestinian people, which is, in my view, very similar, and in some cases even worse, than what happened to the blacks in South Africa.”

I was about 19 or 20 working in a grocery warehouse. I filled orders for stores, basically shopping for cases of cans of peas rather than just a can as one would for oneself. Anyhow, we fill these skids on carts that we pull behind our electric tugs and load it up with what a given store requests. All the paper products are at the end of the run so as not to crush them under the other products. Both of my skids are stacked with product at least six feet high and I sprain my back throwing upon it the last product on my list. I get the damn box about chest high and felt it like a knife in the back. I groan out loud and a guy a ways down the aisle says, “Well drop the box, you idiot!” Sound advice. I do so sit on it. What was this terrible load that did me in? Toilet paper. I hurt my back lifting toilet paper. But hey, cut me some slack. It was a box of one hundred rolls and it was big and awkward, plus I wasn’t wearing sensible shoes.

Since then it troubled me greatly for many years. It would rear its ugly head at the strangest times. I once spent the night with a new girlfriend and come morning I couldn’t get out of her waterbed. Lost two days of work. Other times, I would get ambushed. I’d be bowling and out of the blue, bending over to pick up my ball from the ball return, I’d hit just the right angle and the pain would drop me to my knees. Then, try like hell, I couldn’t duplicate the position in order to learn what to avoid and I’d be fine the rest of the night.

Now, at 51, the back hasn’t bothered me in years. About four or five I should say, since I spent about a year living a vegan lifestyle. I don’t eat that way now (too lazy to start again), but that’s one benefit that hasn’t faded to it’s previous state. The point being that back pain can also be a dietary concern. In any case, one lesson from those days is that chronic pain can be lessened, if not alleviated, by alkalizing. Areas of pain are generally more acidic than other areas, thus eating a more alkaline diet reduces chronic pain, as well as creating an internal environment inhospitable to nasty things that cause all disease. Big lifestyle change, but also beneficial for short term. In the meantime, ice, ice baby.

Fidel Castro is supposed to be in “very grave” condition. Any bet on how long it takes the moonbat Left to start spreading wacko conspiracy theories once Cuba’s El Presidente kicks the bucket?

Here is a preview: Did Bush have little ol’ Fidel poisoned like that Russian spy? Was he snuffed by a cruise missle like the ones that destroyed the WTC on 9/11? Maybe Fidel has been taken hostage by the CIA and is being held hostage along with Osama bin Laden, Ken Lay and Elvis.

How about a contest? Reveal The Neocon Conspiracy That Killed Fidel! Entries will be judged for awards in the following major categories:

Most Implausible Premise

Incoherence and Self-Contradiction

Poor English and Grammar

The Order of the Tinfoil Cap (for Best Theory Composed While Under Medication/Restraint)

Most Elaborate Connect The Dots To Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/FOX News/Mark Foley/Religious Right

I hear Hillary is in Iraq trying to find some cajones. Bill never had any.

Oh, I did hear that Hillary tried to hire the best bodyguards she could find, but they turned her down. What does Hillary have to fear? The troops are too disciplined to even tell her off. The insurgents know a friend when they see one, even if she isn’t in a burqa. The nutjob left is in the US, so what is Hillary so afraid of? Does she think Bill would hire people to end his marriage via a coffin?

ST, if you replaced your CRT monitors with flatscreens you could carry them blithely and briskly whenever the fancy struck.

Or you could just put out a plea for help and a dozen members of your commentariat would descend upon your abode, lifting and carrying at your whim.

Don’t look at me – I’m headed overseas again and I’m pretty sure they’d balk at letting me fly back to NC to move stuff. But I’ll give you some phone numbers of the brass hats and maybe they’d bend for you.

Glad your feeling better ST. I’ve been there. I’ve either thrown my back out or cramped my neck so bad I couldn’t move. My doc always told me to alternate between hot and cold packs and to take Aleve rather than Ibuprofen. And if you can get a hold of some good muscle relaxants, go for it.